Ipod Ownders will soon get the chance to own an iPhone phone, a cell phone that plays iTunes and surfs the Web, electronics maker Apple said Tuesday. The device will retail for between $499 and $599. I already own these features on my cingular motorolla slvr, so what's new here, well, i guess is the apple name right.
Apple's company chairman Steve Jobs, speaking at the company's annual Macworld expo, called the iPhone, which will be available in June 2007, he called it a "revolutionary mobile phone" that will feature an iPod, phone and what he called an "Internet communicator." don't we already have this on most of the popular wireless phones anyway?
Steve Jobs also said that Apple's iTunes will sell Paramount movies, and that the long-awaited AppleTV device to view downloaded videos will be available beginning in February of this year. i think you'll be able to setup your wallpapers screensavers and background just like other popular wireless phones.
The phone is rectangular shape, and the entire front surface is a touch screen lcd. All of its functions are activated by touching them, but when you bring your iPhone to your face, a proximity sensor will turn off the touchscreen so you don't accidentally face dial. isn't that weird.
The Iphone, which runs on Mac OS X operating system, will be able to download and play music and movies (mp3. .wav mpeg. .avi files). It will come in two models -- a $499 dollar with 4GB of memory and a $599 with 8GB of memory.
"This is a day I've been looking forward to for two-and-a-half years," Jobs said to the audience at San Francisco's Moscone Center.
Jobs was happy about the iPhone's Web-browsing capabilities. But i have to say, this is not something new in wireless technology.
He said: "It's bad out there today," in regards to today's wirelles browsers. "It's a real revolution to bring real Web browsing to a phone." hmm, i wonder if maybe firefox would be available. firefox is an excellent browser.
To show the crow how the internet was view throug the phone, Jobs open up The New York Times website to show how is different from any ordinary cell phone screen. it was as if you were looking at the website though your computer rather than your cell phone's weird format.
After The New York Times, he visited the starbucks website though google's maps, at which he actually ordered 4,000 lattes to go. but i don't remember how the wallpaper background looked like.
Even though all these features are cool, Jobs said the "killer app is making calls." meaning you can actually use this thing to make phone calls.
The iPhone will operate on the GSM protocol, but won't have third-generation broadband initially. Jobs said that 3G capability is coming. It will also sync with the Mac's Address Book application.
Cingular, a unit of AT&T , will be Apple's sole U.S. partner. It's an exclusive multiyear agreement, which means no other carrier will be able to sell the iPhone through 2009. a screen saver would be nice to have here.
In a move that could hurt BlackBerry maker Research in Motion , Apple will offer free push e-mail from Yahoo on the phone device. RIM currently charges for its e-mail service.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang and Cingular Wireless CEO Stan Sigman each appeared with Jobs at some point during the keynote.
While onstage, Jobs played a voicemail on the phone from former Vice President Al Gore, a member of the company's board, congratulating the Apple chairman on the new device. It was Gore who led the special committee which recently exonerated Jobs of wrongdoing in the company's options backdating controversy.
Apple let Jobs off easy
On Tuesday Jobs also unveiled the product formerly known as iTV, which will now be called Apple TV. This device has a wireless connection that will let up to five computers stream or download video content to a television. It can connect to a large-screen high definition television, and with 40 gigabytes of memory can store 50 hours of movies and television shows.
Jobs announced that there have been 2 billion iTunes sold for iPods. He said it took 3 years to sell the first billion and ten months to sell the second billion. He added that 1.3 million movies have been sold for video iPods.
There was some question as to whether Apple would be able to use the iPhone name for the device. But Cisco Systems which owns the rights to the iPhone name, said Tuesday it expects to reach agreement with Apple later Tuesday on using the name for its device. You can't put wallpapers or screensaver on the cisco phones anyway, so who cares.
so what is apple going to do with the Iphone name since Cisco owns the trademark rights, It is especulated that both cisco and apple has come into an agreement for apple to use cisco's trademarked name of Iphone. I think cisco trademarked this a while back for their internet VOIP phones.
The company also said that it is changing its name to Apple Inc. from Apple Computer Inc. to reflect the changing nature of the company's product list.
